My self-rehab is going well. I believe the root of my injury has finally showed itself. Part of the fun with conducting physical therapy is that the therapist is like a detective. You are often presented with many clues and many different suspects. You have to narrow down which one is the actual culprit and then why it happened. Take for instance, medial knee pain. On the medial side of the knee, there is a meniscus which separates the femur from the tibia. There are also numerous tendons of adductor muscles that attach to the medial side of the tibia. And there is a bursa, which separates all those tendons from the tibia prior to the attachment site. Even once you figure out which one is causing the pain, then you have to narrow down why. Is the muscle tight and pulling on the attachment site causing inflammation? Is the meniscus damaged? If so, why is it damaged? Did they have a fall during a soccer game? Was the fall due to poor muscular strength or endurance causing faulty body mechanics? The list is literally endless.
As areas of my leg have calmed down, only one culprit remains: the gastroc. More specifically, the lateral head of the gastroc. The gastroc is the main muscle of your calf. The one that bulges out when you point your toes down. There is a lateral head and a medial head. The lateral head attaches to the femur just above the knee joint, underneath the lateral hamstring. Once Shannon massaged that attachment area, my pain went away and has not returned. Further down the lateral gastroc I still have a lot of muscle spasm and tension. Running tends to stress the gastroc more than cycling. I also tend to evert my foot when running, which stresses my lateral muscles more than the medial muscles. Running hills puts even more stress on the gastroc due to the change in running style and angle at the ankle. Rewind back to last year when my problem first appeared and it all makes sense now. I was increasing my running mileage much too fast and also added in hills for the first time ever. My runs went from 3-4 miles to 8-10 miles and included many steep hills on the road and trail. No wonder my gastroc was unhappy. The location of the pain disguised the true culprit. It felt like it was my hamstring, but it was actually deep to the hamstring where the gastroc attachment is. I believe cycling did not aggravate the injury, but also did not let it heal all the way, so when I started running again this year (doing hills again) the problem was reignited. I wish I had figured this all out earlier!
I have returned to training very slowly and have built up beyond two hour rides now. I knocked off two 2:30 rides last week, one indoors and one outside. I completed a three hour ride today with no problems. Three hours was my goal time to make before moving myself out of my rehab phase and back into more of a traditional base-building period. So far things have been super slow and super easy. When I say slow, I mean slow. Some of my rides have been at 13 mph average speed. So, I have not had any intensity, ridden a hill, or touched the big ring a single time since before Christmas.
We got a nice little treat last weekend with some snow on Friday night. Shannon and I were watching a movie and did not even realize it was snowing outside. When I looked out the window, the ground was covered and the flakes were still falling. We went outside about 11pm and built a snowman on the dock. The ground was still melting the snow so the wood of the dock was the coldest place and helped our snowman stay around a bit longer. One thing I like about snow is how it reflects light enough that you can see fairly well outside even without a moon. We had fun walking around the pond and building the snowman with no flashlight needed.
The next morning, I got up and took a few pictures of the snow and our snowman. You have to be quick here in Tennessee. Snow rarely hangs around for more than a few hours. This snow was no exception and it was completely gone before noon. The temperature reached 48 degrees that afternoon and we were able to get in a great road ride in the sunshine.
Snow on the farm
Snowman on the dock
It was a a very moist snow and stuck well to the trees. Snow is usually very dry here in Tennessee when it does come.
Kale surviving under the snow
I am happy to report that First Endurance is back with me for 2015, joining Maxxis as my sponsors for the season. I cannot speak highly enough about First Endurance. They are committed to quality products and make sure there is never any kind of contamination to their products that might get you flagged on a pee test. I love all their products, but MultiV is now my favorite. I've been on it about a year now and have not been sick one single time since starting it. It is good stuff!
With the bike down time, I have been working more to save money for racing and other life things. I've been doing all therapy for the past two months. The cookie dough business does not do many deliveries from mid-December through early February due to all the school holidays. I'm saving as much money as I can for the season in case I do finally get myself fully healed and back into race shape, so I can travel and do the bigger races. Hopefully, one of these days, I'll get the attention of a team or sponsor that will help with costs. We are still saving for a house as well. House hunting has been disappointing so far. We have seen two houses that we liked, but both owners wanted way more than the house and land were worth. Both seemed to think they were on a gold mine because they had some acreage. Just because you have land does not mean it is good, usable land. A ravine is not worth the same amount as a piece of flat land. I am interested in another one now that is near my parents and our trail, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I'm expecting another outrageous price tag from what I have seen so far.
I've been playing with my new drill kit. I built us a firewood rack for the den so now we don't have to go down to the basement every two hours to get wood when we have a fire. My next project is making more ladders like the one I rode in the barrel ride last year. The pond is just screaming for me to jump into it on a bike. I will need a bigger ramp though...
Fire wood rack
Now comes my first "getting old" moment. I have begun to experience the white hairs. Hey, I'm just 28. Those things aren't supposed to come around for another 15-20 years! I don't know how it started for you (if you even have any white hairs), but here's how it went down for me. One day, I think I see some fuzz in my hair. I try to brush it out, but it doesn't move. Upon closer inspection, I see it is a white hair. Oh well, it's just one. I've heard the old tale about if you pull out a white hair, two grow back in it's place. The little hair didn't look like a head of Hydra, so I plucked it.
A few weeks later, it was back! And it brought friends. I continued to pull them out, hoping nobody would notice, but Shannon is starting to notice them regularly and gets a good chuckle every time she sees one. I bug her about being the old one because she is older than me by a few months. It makes her day to see I'm showing the signs of aging first. The hairs are amassing in numbers now. You know it's getting bad when you try to pluck one and you get a white hair, but it's not the one you were trying to pull out. Doh!
It has been a slow time since my last post. My leg injury has dictated my life for the most part. I took a few days off after the Crossfire Cyclocross to allow for some healing. In the past, a few days of complete rest totally resolved the problem. But this time I pushed myself into the hurt zone a little too much. Three days of rest did little to get rid of the ailment. I did a few two hour rides and had pain near the end. Then it progressively got worse, to the point to where 15 minutes on the trainer Christmas Day was more than I could stand.
It was time to kick in my physical therapy brain and actually do something about the problem. I started with a full week off from all activity beginning the day after Christmas. For the first time in a very long time, I went on a trip without my bike or running shoes. I was not happy about it, but mentally it was nice to take a break. I also let loose the bands of eating right and let myself have some fun while we visited the Toneys in Indiana.
Christmas was really great despite my bike frustrations. We had Christmas with my family, then went to Indiana to be with Shannon's family. At my family's dinner, I played a prank on Grandma. She is queen of the envelope gifts. And she has an envelope for everyone. Envelopes for people I haven't even seen in 10 years. A few years ago, she forgot to make an envelope for my uncle Tommy, who we tease her about being her favorite son (he's the oldest). The story gets brought up every year and we laugh about it. It still really bothers her that she forgot him. It was mentioned this year that it would be funny if she forgot someone else. Why yes it would be. I took it upon myself to remove my sister's envelope from the stack while Grandma was not looking. I hid it in Grandma's purse.
Dina was the perfect victim. She was arriving to dinner late because she had to work, so she was not there when the envelopes were handed out. Being left out would also bother Dina very much, but she is the quite type and would never say anything. Grandma did not realize that it was missing until Dina arrived. She went to get Dina's envelope and there was a long silence. She had no idea where it was, but she was adamant that she had made one for everyone. She kept saying she checked them at least three times. She said she checked her purse to make sure she had not left one behind when she picked them up. Perfect! I didn't know she had brought them in her purse when I placed the envelope into her purse. This was getting better!
We poked fun at Dina about how she had been left out. She maintained that it was fine, but I could see the frustration on her face. I am her brother after all, and I have provoked that look many times in my day. Finally, after twenty minutes of Grandma thinking she had lost her mind, she checked her purse and found Dina's envelope. Both were relieved, but Grandma remained suspicious. She may be getting on the higher end of the scale in age, but she knows when she did or did not do something. She never figured out who did it, but she did have her suspects, which included me, my Dad and Grandpa Bill. She seemed the most sure that it was Bill, which is hilarious to me because he was least likely to do something like that out of anyone at the dinner. He has major hearing difficulties. When Grandma asked him about the situation, he kept asking her to repeat it or would just smile like old people do when they get tired of asking you to say it again. Grandma took this as him messing with her and made him the prime suspect. Ahh, the joys of a good Christmas dinner prank to liven up the evening!
The only other highlight of the evening was again realizing that nobody really knows anything about anybody. One of my aunts still cannot spell Dina's name right. If she couldn't get Dina's name down in 25 years then it should not have been a surprise when she gave us our gift and it was labeled "To: Sharon & Dustin."
Indiana was really fun this year. It was the first time I could relax while there. Last year was the first year I have ever gone and not been sick with some nasty cold. Between being sick and trying to log winter miles, I am usually not up for a lot of other things. I push the mileage so much to counteract the loads of food that Shannon's Mom always makes me. She tests my control every time I go. I'm not complaining though. There are far worse things a mother-in-law could do to you!
This was the first time we got to see Joel and Evie in a while. They are our nephew and niece. They are getting bigger now and fun to talk to. Evie is in a creative stage, making up crazy stories and naming everything around her. I did my best to keep her talking as much as possible for my entertainment. The first day we were there, she had a toy horse that she was carryong around with her everywhere she went. I asked her what it's name was and she told me Lucifer. Ahh, such a nice name for a horse. Then she said, "Her full name is Princess Donny Lucifer." Immediately, I sent her to tell Aunt Shannon the horse's name. This priceless moment could not be kept between just Evie and I. Princess Donny Lucifer is kind of a good horse name. I can see the Kentucky Derby results now: 1st-Man o' War, 2nd-Spectacular Bid, 3rd-Princess Donny Lucifer. Some day in the future we just might have to get a dog and name it Princess Donny Lucifer.
We went bowling one day which was a lot of fun. I have not been bowling in about four years. I am not great at it, but have fun doing it. Joel was hilarious to watch. He was not strong enough to pick up the ball, so he sat it at the line and gave it a push down the lane. It rolled soooo slow. It took the ball about 30 seconds to get to the pins. His technique may have been odd, but the kid was racking up the score. Apparently, a slow rolling ball can be a very good thing. Rather than knocking the pins back from the force of impact, the pins just fell over in place, knocking down the others like dominoes. He had several strikes with this technique and beat me in every game. Turd.
Shannon's brother, Jake, and his wife, Brooke, recently moved to Michigan so Jake can go to school. We traveled up to Galesburg, just outside of Kalamazoo, to see their new place. It was an awesome buy. The house was a farm house built in the 1940s with a cool layout and a big basement. It sat on 20+ acres of rolling pasture with some woods around the edge and a pond. It also had two plots of Christmas trees on it. It looked like a great place to have a little farm and perfect for cyclocross. I would love to have some land like that here in Tennessee. I walked the property while we were there and it was just awesome. We also helped Jake with some of his home-improvement projects that he has been working on since the move-in. We insulated the attic, which really saved Jake a lot of time. It would have taken forever for him to do that by himself. With three of us, we knocked it out in just a few hours. I got in a great upper body workout too with lifting the bundles of insulation. At least I burned a few calories during the week.
It was a really fun trip. I think it went well considering I gained just three pounds in two weeks with minimal exercise and no restraints on eating. I got some great gifts as well, like a new drill set for building bridges and ladders on the trail, and a sweet reclining chair to take to the races next season.
We got home on New Year's Eve, just in time to do the pond jump on New Year's Day. For the third year running, we started off our year with a polar plunge jump into the pond behind our house. It was much colder this year, as the temperature has stayed low, especially at night. The pond had ice on it in the shallower areas, but was clean near the dock.
Some thin ice at the shallow end of the pond
Five people said they would do the jump, but when the time came, only Dina showed up. She and I did the jump together, both going in twice. I let her jump first so I could see her reaction. It was a good one! She was in complete shock when she came up. You could see the fear in her eyes when she realized that she had jumped pretty far out from the dock. I gave her some peer pressure and got her to jump a second time. I would say this was the coldest one yet. The water was colder and the outside air was colder as well. It was only 34 degrees when we jumped. My skin was numb by the time I walked back to the house, but inside I was warm. It was actually quite refreshing. I wouldn't mind doing that a little more often.
Walking to the pond. My Dad was with us, but decided not to jump. Weenie!
Getting ready
Getting psyched up!
Dina goes
I gave her a good fist pump when she came out of the water and started working on persuading her to jump again.
The splash of both of us going into the water.
Getting out
My second jump
Flopping out like a fish
Here is a video of our jump, filmed by Shannon from the shore and also from my head as I wore the GoPro.
2015 Polar Plunge Video
The injury forced me to miss the first Snake Creek Gap TT race on January 3. The entry fee is high, but it counts for all three races which turns into a reasonable amount. But when you miss one race, it just isn't worth it to still the pay the high dollars for only two races, so I won't be at any of the Snake races this year. My bikes were not ready anyway. I finally got a seat for my hardtail and fixed the brakes on it, but the other bikes are out of commission right now. I decided to replace all the bearings and bushings on both my Racer-X and Remedy. The Remedy had a lot of wear on it, but the bearings were fairly smooth. Not so for the Racer-X. I really don't know how the main pivot was even working. The bearings are completely seized up. I have gotten all the bearings now, but have not had a chance to press them in yet. Taking apart the Racer-X revealed yet another area of the frame that is broken. The cross-member that stabilizes the seat stays has come loose, again due to failure of the bonding adhesive. The frame itself is not damaged, but this piece fits much tighter than the cable stop I put on last month. And this piece is held on purely by adhesive. There are no rivets. It will be a little tricky to get enough adhesive into the joint, but I am going to try it.
I took my return to the bike very serious. I made a plan to ease myself back onto the bike and also begin some therapy-type training to strengthen the weaker areas in my legs. I have several spots that needed attention, both with strengthening and stretching. This seemed like a good time to address all those spots at once. I started with just 30-minute rides, then built myself up slowly. All rides were on the trainer so I could keep things controlled. My goal was to work up to riding three hours without pain before I tried any intensity. After a week, and having no pain, I felt that the rest had fixed my issue. I started to feel like I was holding back too much, but I stuck to the plan anyway as I wanted to do this right. Then my confidence got destroyed last week when I had pain at the end of my first two hour ride. The pain came during the last five minutes of the ride. It was devastating to my morale. I really thought I had beaten this thing.
With my free time I have really studied hard on my anatomy as I still am not sure the exact cause of the pain. I was able to narrow it down to a smaller area. I no longer think it is a posterior compartment issue. That would likely cause pain early in a ride, not after two hours. Shannon has been doing massage work to my hamstring and calf area and located several nasty trigger points deep in my calf. She had worked most of them out, but yet the pain still came on. Finally, I was poking around on myself last weekend and found a new spot that reproduced the pain. It was the first time I have ever been able to reproduce the pain exactly. The spot is actually on my femur where the short head of the lateral hamstring, the gastroc and the plantaris muscles all attach. I am not sure which muscle is the culprit, but I think we finally found the right area to work on. Shannon tore that area up and so far I have not had any further pain.
All of those muscles participate in plantar flexing the ankle and flexing the knee, both of which are prime movements in cycling and running. The therapy exercises have pointed out that I am very weak in my tibialis muscles on the anterior side of my leg. My theory now is that I put too much stress on the posterior muscles due to a being so weak in the anterior muscles. The pain is my body's way of telling me that there is an imbalance. Cycling does not work the anterior side of the lower leg, but running does. I guess 15 years of bike riding without training less-used muscles has finally caused me some issues. It took running to point out the imbalances Still, this is just my theory. I have been very disappointed by my therapy friends. They have shown little interest in looking at my issue, which really pisses me off because I have helped every one of them with their issues over the years.
I have reduced my ride lengths, not attempting two hours again just yet. I am riding outside now, which does give me more resistance on the leg and so far it has held up. All the time off the bike and the ride time on the trainer has not been that hard for me mentally. I feel refreshed and focused now after the break. The weather has been terrible prior to the past few days so staying inside has been easy to do. The worst thing about this is that I want to go harder. The leg feels fine early on and it makes me want to hammer. Even when it does hurt, it does not feel like a muscle injury. But I know I must stick to the plan and keep things light. I am already way behind in my training. My goal now is just to be over this thing by March. Then I can start to focus on getting my base back and then adding intensity. I am really unsure of my status right now so I do not know when my season will start. The first scheduled race is March 7 at the new Smashville Criterium in Nashville promoted by the Nashville Predators hockey team. I would love to do that event, but right now it is looking like I won't be ready by then.
Ok, time to go for a ride and then serve some kitchen time. I was determined to keep from getting more time in my calorie-counting game with Shannon, but being off the bike for the better part of a month does not help a brother out at all. Needless to say, I will be in the kitchen quite a bit over the next few months to pay off my debts. Until next time, thanks for reading!
